President Donald Trump, flanked by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., left, and Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., speaks at the White House on Aug. 2 during the unveiling of legislation that would place new limits on legal immigration.

America has always welcomed immigrants with open arms — it’s a hallmark of the land of opportunity.

But our current immigration laws no longer serve the best interests of the American people, and President Donald Trump wants to change that.

The president understands that addressing the mass legal immigration of unskilled workers is just as important as addressing illegal immigration and the violent crime that comes with it.

We “must get rid of Lottery, Catch & Release etc. and finally go to system of Immigration based on MERIT! We need great people coming into our Country!” the president tweeted last week.

This is why Trump and Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, and David Perdue, R-Georgia, introduced the RAISE (Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment) Act last year.

“Switching away from this current system of lower-skilled immigration, and instead adopting a merit-based system, we will have so many more benefits,” the president said at the time. “It will save countless dollars, raise workers’ wages, and help struggling families — including immigrant families — enter the middle class.”

The RAISE Act will cut the number of greencards given out a year from roughly one million to 500,000. It will end the diversity visa lottery program and put a stop to family chain migration.

Chain migration allows extended family members of naturalized citizens to claim citizenship. That policy along with the diversity visa lottery have let millions of low-skilled immigrants to flood our communities.

The results have been devastating for American workers, who have seen massively depressed wages as the labor market becomes inundated with low-skilled immigrants who will work for substandard wages.

Since 1979, as mass migration accelerated, Americans without college degrees have seen their real hourly wages decline, according to an analysis conducted by the Congressional Research Service. This drop has been particularly drastic for American workers without high school diplomas, who have seen their hourly wages plummet by nearly 25 percent.

Between 1970 and 2016 — a period during which America’s foreign-born population more than tripled — the real income for the bottom 90 percent of workers declined by 8 percent. Between 2007 and 2015, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (an organization that seeks to reduce overall immigration) found that all net new jobs were filled by immigrants, legal or otherwise.

In addition to its negative effect on the job market, the mass influx of legal migrants have also put a strain on the country’s resources. A shockingly high amount of legal immigrants are on welfare — over half of immigrant families according to a 2015 report from the Center for Immigration Studies. Combined with additional expenses such as educating children who don’t speak English and printing multiple copies of government literature in different languages, the costs to taxpayers are astronomical.

Instituting a merit-based immigration system and putting an end to the diversity lottery and chain migration is the only just and fair solution to the current migration free-for-all.

Merit-based immigration will protect American workers and strengthen the economy by ending mass migration and ensuring that only immigrants who bring true value to American society will be allowed into our country.

“For decades, our immigration system has been completely divorced from the needs of our economy, and working Americans’ wages have suffered as a result. Our legislation will set things right,” said Sen. Tom Cotton when the legislation was introduced last year. “We will build an immigration system that raises working wages, creates jobs, and gives every American a fair shot at creating wealth, whether your family came over on the Mayflower or just took the oath of citizenship.”

President Trump campaigned on the promise to put America and her people first. The RAISE Act does just that. Merit-based migration will strengthen our economy, increase social cohesion, and secure a brighter future for all Americans.

Tom Tancredo is a former U.S. Congressman for Colorado.

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